Thread by @ShowbizAndNewz

👇MUST READ the full thread to read the heart wrenching interview of Pakistan's new comer singer @shyraaroy :

"I Was Sold In Heera Mandi By My Own Father And This Is How I Overcame That Life"
"When I was 12 years old, a relative raped me. He was my cousin."

Courtesy @mangobaaz

Debutante Shyraa Roy who is a Dubai based Pakistani singer shares the ordeal that her formative years were after she was allegedly sold in heera mandi, according to her own claims. She says she was subjected to unimaginable hardships that she is narrating in her own words:

“It is said that when a woman is born, an entire generation is born with her; but unfortunately in Pakistan not everyone thinks this way. Their thinking is still outdated and conservative. I was born in a poverty ridden family in Lahore. I was my parents’ first child.

My mother loved me dearly but my father didn’t. Since I was a child, I have seen my parents fight every single day. I have grown up hearing their screaming matches every night or day. The abuse wasn’t just verbal, it was physical too. I was only 5 years old when I saw my father

beat my mother for the very first time.I had an extremely disturbed childhood because my father used to beat my mother.

The reason that my father used to beat my mother is because my father had extra marital affairs but every time my mother would confront him,

he would beat her instead. He used to beat her so much that sometimes even her ear drum would bleed. I was the first child in the family. My father wanted a son but unfortunately, my mother gave birth to a female.

So that was another reason that my father never really loved me and scolded my mother for giving birth to a female child. When I was 8 years old only, a 20 something guy who lived in my neighborhood raped me.

I used to play with his younger sisters and one day, when I was at his home, he took me to the apartment roof and raped me there. I was only 8 years old. I didn’t know about anything. For him, it was something normal, he told me this is just for fun and I shouldn’t tell anyone

about what had happened on the roof. So I did exactly as he told me to. Plus, I was scared to tell anyone. We were also really poor when I was a child. I spent my entire childhood in extreme poverty.

Then a time came when my parents got divorced, at the time I was only 12 years old. When I was 12 years old, a relative raped me. He was my cousin. He was the son of my paternal aunt. That incident broke something inside me.

My dad almost stopped talking to me. He blamed me for this whole incident. After this incident, he put fingers on my character and sold me in #HeeraMandi in LHR. My mother paid an amount there to get me back. My mother sold her wedding bangles to purchase me back from that place.

As I was too young at that time, so they didn’t let me work as a prostitute but instead hired me as a maid. There was a time when we didn’t even have a proper home. We didn’t have money to pay the rent so we were kicked out of our apartment.

Sometimes we would stay at her Khala’s place so other times; we would stay at some other relative’s place. Since I was a kid, I wanted to become a singer. I wanted to become a writer, wanted to write poetry but in my family art was considered a sin.

I was 15 years old, when I took part in a singing competition at my school, my family was furious.They wanted to stop me. Things got to the extent that my Mamu threw acid on me. Luckily, my face got saved and it just damaged my shoulders.

I got very scared after this incident and I decided to stop singing forever. At that point, my mother, younger sister and I were staying at our Khala’s place. My mother knew it that I was not happy living in Lahore. She also knew it that I wanted to become a star which was not

possible in Pakistan; because my family wouldn’t have let me live if I had dared to go in show business in Pakistan. So she collected some money and sent me to Dubai for studies. I came to Dubai with hardly anything in my pockets.

I did multiple jobs at a mall to support my studies and living. I did my bachelors in Tourism then I did my masters in Mass Communication. By that time, I was strong enough to stand on my own. I was confident that now I can fulfill all my dreams.

When at first, I decided to pursue my career in show business; I met a guy at a singing audition and I fell in love with him.
He told me he was a record producer. He wanted me to have physical relationship with him but I was adamant that we get nikkahfied

because I wasn’t comfortable in keeping a haram relation with him. Once he got so angry with me that he pushed me off a building. After that I got hospitalized for a couple of months. A rod was inserted in my back so that I could walk again properly.

So I have a lot of complains from this society and from men in general. Like when I had no idea about sex, why was I raped? When I needed my father, so why my father wasn’t there for me? When I needed my home the most, why it was taken away from me? When I was genuinely in love

why I was pushed off the floor of a building? I have been through a lot in my life. I have seen enough pain in my life already; but today I am taking first step to start my life in a completely new manner after being sold in Heera Mandi by my own father.”